21 Great Leaders

Praise for 21 Great Leaders “What a unique combination this book provides! You will discover an intriguing view of twenty-one world-class leaders followed by leadership lessons that will help you grow as an influencer. My friend Pat Williams has written a leadership classic.”

John C. Maxwell New York Times bestselling author “More and more I am convinced that one of the best ways to teach leadership is through the use of stories. When it comes to storytelling, no one does it better than Pat Williams. His newest book, 21 Great Leaders, is a tour de force that integrates leadership stories and lessons that will help anyone with the practical insights they can put into practice.”

John Baldoni Internationally recognized leadership educator and executive coach Author of MOXIE: The Secret to Bold and Gutsy Leadership and Lead with Purpose.

“Pat Williams’ new book 21 Great Leaders is magnificent. The stories are fascinating and the leadership lessons at the end of each chapter will prove invaluable to leaders at every level.”

Frances Hesselbein President and CEO of the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute Recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom “Leadership may be an elusive commodity these days, but this highly useful collection will serve to remind leaders and would-be leaders alike that they need only look again to proven leaders of the past for the lessons and inspiration they need to face modern challenges. This primer should be read by everyone who aspires to manage and influence others.”

Harold Holzer Chairman of the Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation “All Americans who love their country can benefit from this important book.

Although most political dogs in government are probably too old to learn new tricks, the nation might return to its former glory if they emulated the great leaders Pat Williams describes so brilliantly.”

Harlow Giles Unger Author of John Marshall, The Chief Justice Who Saved the Nation

“Wow! What a compelling collection of leaders who personify leadership excellence at the highest level.”

John Swofford Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner “In these difficult times, we all need to step up and lead. Pat Williams uses 21 Great Leaders to show us how.”

Dr. Larry J. Sabato Director, UVA Center for Politics Author of The Kennedy Half Century “Plutarch, who wrote the biographies of every great man in the ancient world, said their virtues were like a ‘looking-glass, in which I may see how to adjust. . .my own life.’ Pat Williams holds up twenty-one great men and women from George Washington to Bill Gates as mirrors for our time. Look at them, and learn.”

Richard Brookhiser Author of Founders’ Son: A Life of Abraham Lincoln “Pat Williams asks us to join him in observing excellent leadership in twentyone men and women from across the political spectrum. He has an eye for the revealing anecdote, an ear for different voices, and a knack for storytelling.”

Joseph J. Ellis Author of Founding Brothers “Whether you are involved as a leader in sports, business, or your family, you will find immense value in Pat Williams’ book, 21 Great Leaders. It’s a great read full of fantastic stories and practical advice that will increase your influence. You will not be disappointed in this investment into your leadership library.”

Mike Slive Southeastern Conference Commissioner “21 Great Leaders is a thoughtful and insightful reflection on the lives and lessons of leaders—recent and distant—who’ve made a meaningful difference. Pat’s near encyclopedic knowledge of history and leadership, and his extraordinary personal experience as a leader and coach, give this book an authenticity that is incomparable. 21 Great Leaders is at once a deep meditation and a practical guidebook that you will find useful in becoming the best leader you can be.”

Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner Coauthors of the bestselling The Leadership Challenge

A n Impr int of B ar bour P ublishing, Inc.

© 2015 by Pat Williams Print ISBN 978-1-63058-690-4

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Scripture quotations marked kjv are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

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Dedication This book is dedicated to my friend John Maxwell, a great teacher, mentor, and role model of leadership

Contents Introduction: The Seven Sides of Leadership.......................................................... 9 The First Side of Leadership: VISION............................................................... 13 1. Walt Disney: Dream, Believe, Dare, Do!......................................................... 15 2. Nelson Mandela: A Rainbow Vision............................................................... 25 3. Steve Jobs: A Dent in the Universe.................................................................. 37 The Second Side of Leadership: COMMUNICATION.................................... 49 4. Winston Churchill: Sending Language into Battle........................................... 51 5. Martin Luther King Jr.: “I Have a Dream”..................................................... 60 6. Ronald Reagan: The Great Communicator...................................................... 69 The Third Side of Leadership: PEOPLE SKILLS............................................... 79 7. Sam Walton: The Ten-Foot Rule...................................................................... 81 8. Franklin D. Roosevelt: Stricken and Strengthened........................................... 89 9. Pope John Paul II: The Force of Forgiveness..................................................... 98 The Fourth Side of Leadership: CHARACTER............................................... 107 10. George Washington: When the Summons Comes......................................... 109 11. Billy Graham: Moral Firewalls................................................................... 119 12. Theodore Roosevelt: The Man in the Arena................................................ 128 The Fifth Side of Leadership: COMPETENCE.............................................. 137 13. Thomas Jefferson: The Competent Polymath................................................ 139 14. Bill Gates: Compute—and Compete............................................................ 149 15. Dwight D. Eisenhower: Competent to Decide............................................. 158 The Sixth Side of Leadership: BOLDNESS..................................................... 167 16. Rosa Parks: Tired of Giving In.................................................................... 169 17. Harry S. Truman: The Buck Stops Here....................................................... 178 18. Margaret Thatcher: The Lady’s Not for Turning........................................... 186 The Seventh Side of Leadership: A SERVING HEART................................... 197 19. Gandhi: The Great Soul.............................................................................. 199 20. Mother Teresa: In Service to God’s Holy Poor............................................... 209 21. Abraham Lincoln: The Great Emancipator.................................................. 219 Notes.............................................................................................................. 233 Acknowledgments........................................................................................... 253 Contact Information....................................................................................... 255

Introduction The Seven Sides of Leadership A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.

John C. Maxwell

M

y most memorable year as a father was the year we had sixteen teenagers living under the same roof. Every morning at seven, those sixteen teens would gather around our long dining room table for breakfast. I would sit at the head and look down the row of glazed eyes and uncomprehending expressions. I would step into my leadership role and try to get their minds engaged.

We had a daily routine called “The Question of the Morning.” Every morning I came up with a new question—something to ignite a spark of cognition in the sleepy recesses of their brains. One morning my question was “Twenty years from now, what are you going to remember about your dad?”

They whispered among themselves—then, David (a future marine) stood up as their spokesman. “Dad,” he said, “the thing we’ll all remember most is that you were always motivating us.”

I had to laugh. My kids had found me out. They knew exactly what I’d been doing: motivating and inspiring them to function together as a team, to work hard in school, to play hard in sports, to keep their rooms neat, to stay out of trouble, to get real with God, and to set high goals for their lives.

In short, I had been practicing leadership in the home.

The point is this: we all are leaders in some arena of our lives—on a national stage, in the workplace, on the campus, or in the home. So we had better give some thought to our leadership roles. We had better find out what leadership demands of us and how to become more effective and influential as leaders.

That’s why I wrote this book—and I believe that’s why you’re reading it.

What Is Leadership?

If you’re like most people, you have leadership responsibilities in dozens of arenas in your life—in your home, your profession, your community, your religious life, and your neighborhood. You have a leadership role to play in your blogging and social 21 Great Leaders — 9

media, your advocacy for political and social causes, and your service on committees, boards, and juries.

I define leadership as “the ability to achieve difficult, challenging goals through other people.” Leadership is an attractive quality that people recognize in an individual who has developed a certain set of traits and skills. Leadership is not bossing people around or manipulating people. Rather, leadership is inspiring people to achieve what they want to achieve but could never achieve without the influence of an inspiring, guiding individual.

There are very few “born leaders,” people who are genetically gifted with leadership ability. Most leaders are made, not born—and that’s good news for you and me. This means leadership can be learned. Leadership ability, including that elusive quality known as “charisma,” can be studied and practiced.

Our world is crying out for leaders. Who should the next leader be? The person next to you? The person behind you? Nope, you’re it. You’re the next business leader, community leader, youth leader, or civic leader our world is looking for.

After decades of study and experience, I’ve concluded that the essence of leadership comes down to seven key ingredients—the Seven Sides of Leadership: 1. Vision. The first task of leadership is envisioning a clear idea of what you want to achieve then inspiring your people to transform your vision into reality.

2. Communication skills. Next, the leader must be able to communicate the vision to the team or organization. Communication skills are essential to leadership.

3. People skills. Great leaders have the people skills to help people feel confident, energized, and motivated to achieve great things. People skills are vital tools of influence that can be learned and improved with practice.

4. Character. Good character is essential to trust. People decide whether or not to follow you based on whether or not they perceive you to be a person of good moral character.

5. Competence. People are willing to be led by those with proven competence as leaders. The word competence encompasses the word compete. Competent leaders make organizations competitive.

6. Boldness. Boldness is a form of courage, the willingness to take reasonable risks in order to achieve worthwhile goals. Boldness is not recklessness or throwing caution to the wind. A bold leader seizes timely opportunities, acts firmly and decisively, and avoids second-guessing. The confidence of a bold leader inspires optimism throughout the organization.

7. A serving heart. An authentic leader is not a boss but a servant. Followers don’t exist to serve the leader; the leader exists to serve, empower, equip, motivate, and inspire the followers. Serve them well, and they will turn your leadership vision into a reality.

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Some people are naturally gifted with some of these traits, but I’ve never known anyone who was born with all seven. Fortunately, the Seven Sides of Leadership are learnable skills. We can acquire them and improve them with practice. The more complete we become in all seven of these traits, the more effective we will be in every leadership arena of our lives.

How to Use This Book

This book consists of twenty-one leadership biographies. Almost every one of these leaders has had a powerful impact on the way we live our lives today. If George Washington or Abraham Lincoln had never lived, if Walt Disney or Steve Jobs had not persevered through setbacks and failures, if Rosa Parks had surrendered to injustice, or if Pope John Paul II or Ronald Reagan had not survived their 1981 assassination attempts, we would be living in a very different world today.

Almost every one of these twenty-one leaders exemplifies all Seven Sides of Leadership (I say “almost,” because I see Steve Jobs as a fascinating exception). I could have easily placed Walt Disney in the boldness category, yet I think he best exemplifies a leader of vision. Ronald Reagan foresaw a world beyond Soviet Communism, and that marks him as a man of vision—yet he is justly known as the Great Communicator, so I have placed him in the communication category. Franklin D. Roosevelt was certainly a bold leader, a man of visionary ideas, and a leader who communicated brilliantly through his “fireside chats,” yet a close inspection of his career shows that he led largely through his people skills.

None of these leaders was perfect as either a leader or a human being (though two have been beatified as saints). I don’t hesitate to show their flaws, because we can learn as much from mistakes and failures as we can from successes. Here are twentyone flesh-and-blood human beings like you and me. We can emulate their virtues, learn from their flaws, identify with their struggles, and take away lessons that will transform our leadership lives. If you want to lead a team, a company, an industry, or a nation, why not learn from the best?

At the end of each chapter, you’ll find a list of leadership lessons I’ve drawn from the life of each leader. As you read, you may discover some additional insights of your own (if so, please write and share them with me!). The twenty-one leaders in this book are the best the leadership world has to offer. The lessons of their lives and the genius of their words are here to be plucked and savored straight from the vine.

Discover these rich lessons, apply these insights to your leadership life—then go make some leadership history of your own!

Pat Williams Orlando, Florida January 15, 2015 21 Great Leaders — 11

The First Side of Leadership VISION

1

Walt Disney Dream, Believe, Dare, Do!

If you can dream it, you can do it.

Walt Disney

I

n 1986, I moved my family to Orlando, Florida, on a quest to achieve the impossible. I was possessed by a vision to build a new NBA franchise in a city that had no pro sports tradition. My partners and I would have to build a fan base from scratch, create a team out of thin air, and build a world-class sports arena before the NBA would even listen to us.

Many experts told me I was crazy; it would never happen. Miami, maybe.

But Orlando? Forget it! But I couldn’t forget it. The vision would not let go. So I turned for insight to another dreamer who had come to Orlando and achieved the impossible: Walt Disney. I knew he had also heard throughout his career, “It can’t be done!” Yet he had proven the naysayers wrong every time. He had built his Magic Kingdom out of dreams and pixie dust.

I had to know his secrets. So I began an intense study of the life and leadership traits of Walt Disney. Out of that study came a wealth of leadership insight and two of my most popular, bestselling books, Go for the Magic and How to Be Like Walt.

Though Walt Disney never lived in Orlando (he only visited central Florida a few times before his death), the city bears the imprint of his personality. His vision for Walt Disney World transformed Orlando into a city like no other. The soul of Walt Disney lives in this place.

In those early days, I had many conversations with longtime Disney executives Bob Matheison, Dick Nunis, and Bob Allen. All were personally mentored by Walt.

I learned so much about Walt Disney that I felt I knew him personally. Thanks to the lessons I learned from Walt’s life, we ultimately achieved our “impossible” dream of the team we call the Orlando Magic.

One summer evening in 1989, I had dinner with Dick Nunis, who started as a Disneyland ride operator in 1955 and ultimately became head of Disney Attractions.

Dick told me story after story of Walt’s leadership life. I asked him to sum up the success secrets of Walt Disney, and I wrote down his insights on a paper napkin.

“First,” Dick said, “Walt had integrity—you could trust him. Second, he could see the future—he was a visionary. Third, he had great people skills and knew how 21 Great Leaders — 15

to get the best out of everyone. Fourth, he was a great motivator and coach. Fifth, he was a bold risk taker—but he only took calculated risks. Six, he was eager to learn from everyone. Seventh, he invited people to challenge his ideas so he could continually improve them. Eighth, he looked at every project and problem from all angles. Ninth, he was fanatically committed to excellence.”

There were many insights compressed into that brief description of Walt Disney.

One that jumped out at me was Dick’s statement that Walt “could see the future—he was a visionary.” Over the years, I continually encountered similar observations from people who knew Walt.

Imagineer Bob Gurr, who designed many of the vehicles still used at Disneyland, told me, “Walt always saw the entire picture. He was the grand master of the vision.”

According to film critic Leonard Maltin, “Walt was a futurist. Walt was a visionary.

There was no single more forward-thinking person than Walt Disney.” And Disney historian Paul Anderson said, “Vision—that was Walt’s special gift. He could envision Disneyland in every detail, and he pursued it relentlessly when everyone else predicted failure.”

World magazine editor Marvin Olasky described how Walt’s vision transcended the times in which he lived: “Walt Disney built his vision in the 1950s and early 1960s when the Cold War was at its height and the likelihood of nuclear disaster seemed high. He wanted Disneyland to be not just a theme park but a portal to a better time and a different world.”1 Bob Matheison told me about working with Walt during the planning of his Florida project. “Walt was always thinking far out into the future,” he said. “He’d become irritated and impatient with our limited thinking. ‘You aren’t thinking far enough ahead,’ he’d say. ‘We haven’t even begun to think big!’ ” Walt died five years before Walt Disney World opened in Florida in 1971. Mike Vance, the creative director of Walt Disney Studios, was there for the opening ceremonies. Someone said to him, “Isn’t it too bad Walt Disney didn’t live to see this?”

“He did see it,” Vance replied. “That’s why it’s here.”2 Vision is the First Side of Leadership. Walt Disney set the standard for visionary leaders.

A Good, Hard Failure

Walt Disney was born in Chicago on December 5, 1901. He spent his happiest, most formative years on a farm outside of Marceline, Missouri. There he developed an interest in drawing animals. The Santa Fe railroad passed near the farm, and Walt loved to climb a hill and watch the trains pass by.

When Walt was nine, his family was forced to sell the farm and move to Kansas City, Missouri. There Walt met his boyhood friend Walter Pfeiffer, who introduced him to the world of theater and motion pictures. Those were tough times, and

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Walt had to help his father, Elias, deliver newspapers to more than seven hundred customers. Walt arose at 4:30 a.m. and had to finish his route before school. It was exhausting work, and Walt’s schoolwork suffered. Throughout his life, Walt had nightmares about delivering newspapers in the snow.

In 1917, Elias Disney moved his family to Chicago. There fifteen-year-old Walt took night courses at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. Patriotic to the core, he dropped out of high school at age sixteen to join the army but was turned down for being underage. He joined the Red Cross as an ambulance driver, but by the time he got to France, World War I was over.

In 1919, Walt moved to Kansas City, where his older brother Roy (his future business partner) worked in a bank. Walt took an advertising job at the PesmenRubin Art Studio, where he met animator Ub Iwerks, who later helped Disney create Mickey Mouse. Iwerks was still working at Walt’s side forty years later, designing the special effects for Mary Poppins.

Walt founded the Laugh-O-Gram Studio in 1922, which produced animated cartoons for theaters in Kansas City. Though his Laugh-O-Gram cartoons and Alice Comedies (combining animation with live action) were wildly popular, the proceeds didn’t cover the generous salaries Walt paid to his growing stable of employees. His financial woes grew, and he was evicted from his studio building. In July 1923, he filed for bankruptcy.

Despite having failed, Walt remained optimistic. Though he had only forty dollars in his wallet, he bought a first-class train ticket (he was going in style) and set off for Hollywood.

“It was a big day,” Walt later recalled, “the day I got on that Santa Fe California Limited. I was just free and happy.”3 But, he added, “I’d failed. I think it’s important to have a good, hard failure when you’re young. I learned a lot out of that.”4 In October 1923, twenty-one-year-old Walt Disney and his brother Roy started the Disney Brothers’ Studio, located on Hyperion Avenue in Silver Lake, near Hollywood. Walt convinced Ub Iwerks to join him in California. In 1925, Disney hired Lillian Bounds as an animation cel inker—and after a brief courtship, they wed.

Walt and Ub created a popular cartoon character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, only to have the character stolen from them by an unscrupulous distributor, Charles Mintz. (Nearly eighty years later, the Walt Disney Company would trade ABC sports commentator Al Michaels to NBC for the rights to Oswald.) After losing Oswald, Walt and Ub created a new character, Mickey Mouse, inspired by a mouse Walt had tamed at his Kansas City studio.

Other Disney characters followed—the Three Little Pigs, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Mickey’s pal Pluto. Walt could have amassed a fortune by churning out an endless supply of animated short features. But a visionary is not content to rest on 21 Great Leaders — 17

his or her leadership laurels.

So Walt envisioned a project that was completely unprecedented—a full-length animated feature based on the Brothers Grimm tale Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Skeptics dubbed the project “Disney’s Folly.” Walt’s wife, Lillian, and brother Roy tried to dissuade him, but Walt’s vision possessed him and wouldn’t let go. He hired an instructor from the Chouinard Art Institute to teach his animators new techniques for drawing animals and human beings in a realistic way. His technicians invented new special-effects processes.

Snow White began production in 1934—and by mid-1937, the studio was out of money. Walt had mortgaged the studio and his own home. He had nothing left to hock. The scheduled release was a few months away. If Walt couldn’t borrow more money and complete the film, the Disney Studio was doomed.

At Roy’s insistence, Walt screened a rough cut for Joe Rosenberg, head of studio loans at the Bank of America. They met in the screening room of Walt’s Hyperion Avenue studio. The film contained patches of crude pencil animation; some sequences were spliced out of order. After an hour, the film came to an abrupt halt—the ending hadn’t been drawn yet. Walt acted out the ending—then he waited for Rosenberg’s answer.

“Well, Walt,” Rosenberg said, rising, “thank you for showing this to me.”

Walt searched Rosenberg’s eyes for a positive sign. He found none. He accompanied the banker to the parking lot. Rosenberg got into his car then leaned out the window and said, “Walt, that picture is going to make a hatful of money. You’ll get your loan.” Those words saved the Disney Studio.

As Joe Rosenberg predicted, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs made a hatful of money—enough for Walt to build a huge new studio complex in Burbank. More full-length features followed—Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Bambi—creating a pantheon of Disney characters, generating enormous wealth through merchandising, theme parks, and television.

Walt’s “Screwball Idea”

Walt’s vision of Disneyland goes back to his boyhood and a place called Electric Park—an amusement park at 46th Street and the Paseo in Kansas City. Walt and his younger sister, Ruth, often rode the trolley to Electric Park. Like Disneyland, the place featured thrill rides, band concerts, shooting galleries, penny arcades, ice-cream shops, boat rides, nightly fireworks, and a scenic railroad around the park. Walt treasured the memory of sitting beside the train engineer, pulling the cord that blew the steam whistle. Electric Park opened in 1907, at the dawn of the electric age, and featured a hundred thousand electric lightbulbs that transformed it into a fairyland at night.5 By the time Walt was in his early thirties, he envisioned building an even greater

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park of his own. In a news story before Disneyland’s grand opening, the Long Beach Independent-Press-Telegram (Friday, July 15, 1955) reported, “Plans for this wonderland first began to go on paper as far back as 1932 when Walt’s magnificent dream began to take form. In cleaning files at the Burbank studio recently, original Disneyland sketches, bearing the 1932 date, were found.”6 The dream of Disneyland grew stronger after he became a father. Walt recalled: Well, it came about when my daughters were very young and Saturday was always Daddy’s day with the two daughters. . . . I’d take them to the merry-go-round. . .and as I’d sit while they rode the merry-go-round and did all these things—sit on a bench, you know, eating peanuts—I felt that there should be something built, some kind of amusement enterprise built, where the parents and the children could have fun together. So that’s how Disneyland started.7 In the summer of 1948, Walt took a train ride that put his Disneyland vision on a fast track. Accompanied by animator and fellow railroad enthusiast, Ward Kimball, Walt boarded the Santa Fe Super Chief, bound for the Railroad Fair in Chicago.

There Walt and Ward toured vintage railroad locomotives and cars and talked to oldtime railroad men. Each night, the fair put on a dazzling fireworks display over Lake Michigan. Walt was especially impressed by a replica of President Lincoln’s funeral train. Lincoln was one of Walt’s heroes, and boarding the black-draped train as a band played “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” moved him to tears.

After the fair, Walt and Ward took the Wabash Railway to Dearborn, Michigan, where they visited the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. Exhibits included historical buildings that Ford had moved to Dearborn from their original sites, including Noah Webster’s Connecticut home, the Ohio bicycle shop where the Wright Brothers build the first airplane, and some of the original structures of Thomas Edison’s New Jersey laboratory complex. An 1870s steam train circled the grounds.

Walt returned to California with a vision for a project he called Mickey Mouse Park, which he planned to build adjacent to his Burbank studio. Walt’s brother Roy dismissed the plan as a “screwball idea.” It would be the height of irresponsibility, he said, to risk studio money on Mickey Mouse Park. Walt agreed he wouldn’t spend studio money on the park. Out of his own pocket (and without Roy’s knowledge), Walt paid Disney artists to draw up plans for his Disney-themed amusement park.

It didn’t take long for his vision to outgrow the little patch of land across Riverside Drive. Walt no longer dreamed of a park. He dreamed of a kingdom—a magic kingdom. And circling Walt’s enchanted domain like a fire-breathing dragon was a steam-powered train.

21 Great Leaders — 19

Selling the Vision

Harriet Burns was a set painter for Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club when Walt recruited her to design attractions for his theme park. She told me, “Walt was a simple, honest, basic person with midwestern values. An ethical man. Nothing he did was about money. It was always about the project.” It’s true. Walt had almost no interest in money, except as a means to finance his expensive visions. Money was his brother Roy’s problem. The only currency Walt cared about was imagination. “I plow back everything I make into the company,” he said. “I look at it this way: If I can’t use the money now, if I can’t have fun with it, I’m not going to be able to take it with me.”8 Walt always dreamed beyond his means. Disneyland was a dream so vast, so expensive, that it was absurd to think he could ever afford it. Yet it exists—because Walt dreamed it.

There was a mule-headed obstinacy to Walt’s visionary genius. He once said, “If management likes my projects, I seriously question proceeding. If they disdain them totally, I proceed immediately.”9 Walt believed that if Roy and the board of directors approved his ideas, his vision wasn’t big enough. He was satisfied only when his dreams drew active opposition.

In 1952, Roy earmarked $10,000 of studio money for the Disneyland project.

It was a tiny sum, but it signaled a huge shift in Roy’s thinking. Walt knew that once Roy was in for ten grand, he was in to stay.

Walt created a separate company, WED Enterprises, to design his park, and he recruited top Disney artists and technologists to lend their imagination to the project. Walt invented a concept now called “cross-functional” or “interdisciplinary” teams, drawing people from different fields of expertise to work toward a common goal. His handpicked teams of artists, sculptors, engineers, and machinists combined their creativity to build structures, transportation systems, and thrill rides that had never existed before. Because his WED Enterprises innovators combined functions of imagination and engineering, Walt called them Imagineers.

Harriet Burns told me, “I worked in the art department at WED. Walt would sit on a stool and relax with us because we were so informal. He was always positive, always encouraging us, always contributing his own ideas.”

Construction costs for Disneyland far exceeded Walt’s original projections. Roy would have to come up with ever more creative sources of funding before the park could open, so he met with executives at all three networks to pitch a Disneyland TV show. He came away with an offer from ABC worth $5 million. In exchange, ABC got a sure-fire hit TV show and one-third ownership of Disneyland. The Disneyland series convinced powerful financiers that the project was on a firm footing. Soon investors were lining up to lend Walt money.

Disney quietly bought up a patchwork of orange groves in Anaheim, California.

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As workers began removing trees and excavating land, Walt took his close friend, TV personality Art Linkletter, to the Anaheim site. Linkletter told me about that visit.

“We drove for miles,” he said. “When we got there, I couldn’t believe what I saw. There was nothing but orange groves and bare dirt. We were miles from any big population center. I thought Walt had lost his mind. Why would anyone want to put a bunch of roller coasters out in the middle of those orange groves? Why would anyone drive for miles to get there?”

Walt took Art on a tour, describing all the lands of his Magic Kingdom: Main Street U.S.A., Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland.

“You’ve got to get in on this, Art,” he said. “Buy up all the property around the park, and just hold it for a few years. Once Disneyland is up and running, you’ll be able to sell it to developers for a hundred times what you paid for it.”

“I just couldn’t see what Walt saw,” Art Linkletter told me. “I should have listened to him, but I couldn’t grasp his vision. Years later I did a calculation. Every step I took that day was worth about $3 million—or would have been had I taken Walt’s advice, I would have been a billionaire. I let it slip through my fingers.”

Walt wanted Art to buy property around Disneyland to control the environment around Disneyland. Walt wanted clean, family-friendly surroundings—not the cluster of seedy motels and miniature golf parks that eventually sprang up. As former Disneyland President Jack Lindquist put it, the park was surrounded by “ugly urban sprawl at its worst.”10 On Sunday, July 17, 1955, Walt hosted a live TV preview of Disneyland.

The hour-long TV special was cohosted by Walt’s friends Art Linkletter, Robert Cummings, and Ronald Reagan. It was the fulfillment of a vision Walt first glimpsed when he beheld the wonders of Electric Park.

The City of Tomorrow

At first, Walt said he’d never build another park. But by the late 1950s, he was dreaming even bigger dreams—a Community of Tomorrow in Florida. In 1963, after commissioning numerous studies, Walt was leaning toward Orlando, a sleepy little citrus town in central Florida, as the site of his new project. In November 1963, Walt and his associates flew cross-country in a private plane and viewed the property from the air. “This is it,” he said.

Within two years, the land acquisition for the Florida project was nearly complete.

The Disney Company had assembled nearly 27,400 acres of Florida real estate—about 43 square miles (for comparison, Manhattan is less than 34 square miles). In October 1965, the Orlando Sentinel published speculation that the mysterious Orlando land buyer was Disney. The price of Central Florida real estate skyrocketed—but by that time, the land acquisition was 99 percent complete.

I have studied the plans for Walt’s grandest vision. He envisioned nothing less 21 Great Leaders — 21

than a futuristic planned community in which thousands of people would live, work, play, and dream. His gift to the human race would be a clean, healthy, utopian community—an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, or EPCOT. Science-fiction writers have envisioned such a future, but only Walt Disney dared to build it.

Walt’s City of Tomorrow would have consisted of fifty well-planned acres, a climate-controlled city beneath a glass dome, with walkways laid out in concentric circles and monorails circling the city. The gentle whoosh of Disney’s mass-transit system would eliminate noise and smog. The city hub would feature gleaming highrise office buildings and entertainment complexes, and one of the outer circles would consist of tree-lined neighborhoods with schools, churches, shopping districts, and parks.

Corporations would test new products in Walt’s City of Tomorrow, and their sponsorship would underwrite the city’s expenses. Walt devoured every book on urban planning he could find, becoming a self-taught expert on everything from infrastructure to emergency services.

Ralph Kent of the Disney Design Group told me, “Walt Disney was a humanitarian and a utopian. That’s what his dream of EPCOT was all about. He was always thinking about how to make life better for the people of the world. He was promoting peace, understanding, and human progress. We’d tell him, ‘No one will be interested in that stuff.’ Walt said, ‘I’ll teach by entertaining people.’ And he did.”

In October 1966, Walt made a promotional film in which he laid out his vision for EPCOT, the City of Tomorrow. In that film, Walt introduced a scale model of his utopian community. He spoke excitedly about his vision for his signature achievement—but just two months after he made that film, Walt Disney died.

After his death, Walt’s successors scaled back his dream. His City of Tomorrow was downsized to a theme park. The EPCOT Park opened in 1982; it was a futuristic place, dominated by a 180-foot-tall geodesic dome called Spaceship Earth. It was impressive—but it was not Walt’s EPCOT. Without Walt at the helm, his successors didn’t know how to build Walt’s dream, so they settled for a theme park.

As Walt’s grandson, Walter Disney Miller, told me, “EPCOT was my grandfather’s biggest dream—the city of the future that would point the way to a better world. His dream remains unbuilt. When he died, the company lost the driving personality that focused the organization’s energies on a single goal.”

Let’s not be too hard on Walt’s successors. It may have been wise to downsize his dreams. Without Walt himself at the helm, building his dream might have proved impossible. It’s a tragedy for us all that the life of this visionary leader was shortened by cigarette smoking.

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Leadership Lessons from Walt Disney

Some say that vision is the ability to see the future. I disagree. No one can see the future. Vision is the ability to make the future happen. Vision is a form of creativity.

When you see something no one else can see, and you believe you can make it real even though everyone says you’re crazy, that’s vision. Vision is imagination plus action.

Without action, a vision is nothing more than a daydream.

A vision must be visual, and it must also be describable in words. A vision is a word picture you can transfer from your imagination to the imagination of others through the art of communication. If you can’t communicate your vision, how will you make it real?

The world divides people into “dreamers” and “doers.” According to this view, dreamers supposedly have their heads in the clouds. Doers have their feet on the ground. Dreamers deal with what might be; doers deal with what is.

Visionaries don’t see the world that way. Visionaries don’t distinguish between dreamers and doers. Visionaries combine both functions. Visionary leaders have their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. They are realistic dreamers. They don’t just daydream. They strategize and set goals; they recruit talent and build teams; they communicate their vision; they delegate tasks; they invest endless hours of hard work. They take risks and solve problems. They overcome obstacles and opposition.

Visionaries make the impossible possible.

Walt’s nephew Roy E. Disney told me, “If Walt had one great gift, it was that he kept his head down and kept trying. Over the years, he was told that his ideas were impractical, impossible, and would never work: ‘Walt, you’ll lose your shirt on Snow White,’ or ‘Walt, give up this crazy obsession with an amusement park!’ Walt knew his ideas were good and the naysayers were wrong. Walt proved that the only way to get things done is by sticking to your ideas and your beliefs.”

Visionaries don’t foresee the future. They build it. You and I are living in the future Walt envisioned and built.

Someone asked Walt how he achieved so much in one lifetime. He replied, “I dream, I test my dreams against my beliefs, I dare to take risks, and I execute my vision to make those dreams come true.”11 That’s a concise formulation of visionary leadership. Walt’s success formula consists of four parts, which can be summarized in four words: dream, believe, dare, and do. Let’s take a closer look at Walt’s success formula: 1. Dream. Walt said, “I dream.” He begins with a vision of a better future.

2. Believe. Walt said, “I test my dreams against my beliefs.” Walt made sure that his vision of the future was consistent with his core values. He also made sure he had the confidence, the belief in himself, to accept this bold challenge.

3. Dare. Walt said, “I dare to take risks.” Walt took counsel of his confidence, not his fears. He wasn’t reckless, but he believed in himself, and he bet on himself to win.

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4. Do. Walt said, “I execute my vision to make those dreams come true.” Walt wasn’t just a dreamer; he was a doer as well. He focused all his energies on his dreams, he motivated his people to build his dreams, and he turned his dreams into a reality.

Don’t worry that you can’t see the future. Nobody can. Your vision doesn’t exist out there in the future. Your vision exists within you. If you can envision it, if you believe in yourself, if you can sacrifice and take risks for your dream, if you can work tirelessly to build it, then you are a visionary leader.

Everybody can make their dreams come true. It takes a dream, faith in it, and hard work. Yet the work isn’t all that hard because it is so much fun you hardly think of it as work.

Walt Disney

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2

Nelson Mandela A Rainbow Vision

There are times when a leader must move out ahead of the flock, go off in a new direction, confident that he is leading his people the right way.

Nelson Mandela

N

elson Mandela was a prince who could never be king. He grew to become something greater than a king. He became a visionary leader.

He was born July 18, 1918, in the village of Mvezo, in South Africa’s Cape Province. His clan name was Madiba, and his parents named him Rolihlahla, a Xhosa word that meant literally “tree shaker,” someone who shakes things up.

Mandela’s patrilineal great-grandfather was Ngubengcuka, a ruler of the Thembu people from 1809 to 1832. Nelson’s grandfather was one of Ngubengcuka’s many sons. It was a polygamist culture, and Nelson Mandela’s lineage was traced through a “lesser” wife, so he was a descendant of the “left-handed house”—of royal blood, but disqualified from the throne.

Nelson’s father, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa, was a local chief and an adviser to the tribal king. In 1926, when Nelson was eight years old, a white government official accused Gadla of corruption—likely a trumped-up charge. Gadla was a proud man with a stubborn integrity, and he sometimes angered white officials by defying their unjust decrees. The accusation was a devastating blow to Gadla’s reputation and self-esteem.

Gadla was a follower of the tribal god Qamata, but Nelson’s mother, Gadla’s third wife, Nosekeni Fanny, was a Christian. She sent him to a Methodist missionary school when he was seven where he took the English name Nelson. “I defined myself through my father,” Nelson recalled, adding that he especially identified with his father’s qualities of “a proud rebelliousness, a stubborn sense of fairness.”1 In 1927, Gadla came down with a lung disease. Nine-year-old Nelson stood at his father’s deathbed and watched Gadla draw his last breath. Though Nelson admired his father, he was never close to him. He didn’t recall feeling grief, but rather a sense of being “cut adrift.”2

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